Forbes ranks Putin world’s most powerful person, downs Obama

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been ranked the most powerful person in the world by Forbes. He topped the list of the 72 world figures that “matter the most,” while US President Barack Obama was rated second.

Putin’s Syria “chess match” that prevented the US strike,
and his having the last word in the diplomatic row over the
fugitive NSA whistleblower, Edward Snowden, didn’t go unnoticed
with the editorial rating of the influential American business
magazine, and were noted among the reasons for his top place.

This, added to Obama’s recent political failures and scandals
surrounding his second term, have cost the US President the first
position he achieved last year, with a “clear idea of the
shift in the power towards Putin on the global stage.”

The Russian President also “outstripped” the likes of the Chinese
leader Xi Jinping (ranked #3), the German Chancellor Angela
Merkel (who “fell” to #5 from #2 over the year), and the Saudi
King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud (#8).

Curiously, Pope Francis was ranked #4, with the reason being he
is “the spiritual leader of 1.2 billion Catholics, or about
1/6th of the world’s population,” as stated in the media’s
details on its “methodology.”

Apparently, Putin’s first place on Forbes couldn’t appear without
ready-made clichés in the description and accompanying articles,
with terms like “autocratic leader,”“ex-KGB
strongman,” and “dictator” littered everywhere. His
counterpart Obama, on the other hand, has been depicted as
“the handcuffed head of the most dominant country,” but
still the “leader of the free world.”

While giving Putin an optimistic forecast for his possible stay
in office until 2024, Forbes was more negative towards Obama,
saying that his “lame duck period” has already set in.

This is not the first time that Putin has led the “most
influential” rating compiled by Western media. In 2012, Putin
outdid everyone on the list of the international political think
tank, Eurasia Group, published by the Foreign Policy magazine.
However, the first place on the list was left ostensibly empty to
symbolize the think tank’s concept of “no clear leader” in
the modern world.